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tv   MONEY With Melissa Francis  FOX Business  February 14, 2013 5:00pm-6:00pm EST

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buffett. david: go "off the desk." to the republic of georgia where a live political interview got a little bit out of hand. a member of the dream party, yes there is the dream party there, said he would cut off his rival's snakehead. his opponent didn't take that all well from the united national movement. called him a jerk and murderer. here is what followed. [shouting] david: l. david: oh. man. liz: i like the set. kind of funky, woody allen. david: one shot. security did jump in. they separated the nice guys after the one shot. heavy guy looks like he came out of the wrong end of that fist. the men were escorted off the set. it highlights the underlying tensions shall we say political parties in georgia.
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liz: should have super slow-moed that. top three things to watch for tomorrow. michigan consumer sentiment index. they are expects it to rise to 73.8 in january. david: number two, industrial production expected to rise .2% down from december's reading of .3% and a jump of 1% in november. these numbers get all mixed in. the november spike was largely due to recovering from your gained sandy. liz: the number one thing to watch tomorrow, the markets. nasdaq and s&p, will they hold to their six-week winning streak? the dow snapped its five-day winning streak last week. find if the comeback is regained. david: we'll see you tomorrow. melissa: i'm melissa francis and here's what's "money" tonight. the government is dumping money into solar and wind power. but is nuclear power being left by the side of the road? the industry faces daunting challenges with the government playing favorites.
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we speak exclusively with the ceo of westinghouse electric. north carolina makes radical new cuts to jobless benefits that will allegedly help boost businesses. should other states take notice, or will it discourage unemployed workers? one of the state senators backing the cut is here to explain. he is brave. a new king of the friendly skies. american and us airways merge with the biggest airline but will passengers be stuck at the gate? the head of travel north america joins us exclusively with a inside scoop. even when they say it is a not it is always about "money" melissa: our top story tonight, the newest areas in government that are officially named as high-risk for wasting and abusing your tax dollars. the government accountability office puts
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out the report every two years. and the one released just today specifies 30 different areas in danger of creating wasteful spending or even falling victim to fraud. this report affects every american, you and me, and our money. so joining me, exclusive live to go through the most egregious examples, do you know where your money is really going is the gao's managing director for strategic about issues. thank you so much for coming on the show. >> my pleasure. melissa: i've got to tell you one of the ones that really jumped out at me out of the gate was about the department of interior and saying they don't have reasonable assurance that they're collecting the share of revenue from the drilling going on federal lands. that they don't know, have no idea if they're able to calculate getting what is due to the feds. the reason why this jumped out at me because the president mentioned it in his state of the union that he was going to use royalties from drilling on
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federal land for the energy security trust. how is it possible that they just don't know if they're collecting the right amount or not? >> exactly. that's a long-standing problem they have had at the department of interior. we put them on the high-risk list a number of years ago for three reasons. one was the reorganization that they were undergoing in terms of mineral management. the second was the royalties issue, exactly what you're touching on. the third was making sure they had the right people, petroleum engineers and other specialists in place that could actually run the organization. this time because of progress they made just on the reorganization part, we were able to narrow the high-risk issue but the problems remain on the, both the revenue side and on the people management side. they really need to make sure that they have the right people in place that are, that are petroleum engineers and other allied professions that can oversee and work in that department. melissa: they could just be giving away oil because they have no idea what's going on. how much could this be
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costing, do you think? >> that is something we're looking into. we know it is an awful lot of money and it has been going on for quite a long time. one of the things they need to get on top of, obviously as you sate at the outset, we're talking across all the high-risk issues, tens of billions of dollars. some of these high-risk issues have been on there since 1990, we had some of the same issues on there. so we're, while there has been progress, while there's been a lot of savings when things have come off really it is quite egregious on this year after year costing taxpayers so much money. melissa: absolutely. one i always see in the headline, medicare, the medicare program. you guys estimated there were 44 billion, 44 billion in improper payments, medicare payments in 2012 alone. that's an enormous number. how is that happening? >> there's, it is an enormous number. on the other hand it also signifies a bit of progress, progress in the sense of which i realize we're down
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to 44 billion. that is not so much we're popping champagne corks over that but nevertheless, that is progress in the sense that it is actually coming down and what you're get something better, better data that's allowing for targeting of resources both up front and later on going after, you know, if there's, if there's been a problem identified doing recovery audits and going after getting the money. that is, medicare improper payments is one of those issues that i mentioned has been on the high-risk list right from the very beginning. melissa: you mentioned the post office in this list as well. we have the postmaster general coming up who seems like is trying to make his best effort to make a go of it there. what were your suggestions for the post office and what were the problems you saw there? >> the big problem with the postal service and obviously the congress recognizes this and of course the, you know, the postmaster general recognizes this, the issue of the basic business model. the first class mail obviously has been declining over recent years as we move to text messages and e-mail
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and the rest. now they're losing even more in terms of periodicals as we get more and more over ipads and the rest. they need to focus on, the question is, what is the business model of the postal service going forward? that is obviously one of their big challenges. we saw recently one of their proposals was to go, to reduce the daily deliveries, rather to cut out saturday delivery, obviously a point of some controversy. it's the big question of their business model that they struggle with. melissa: absolutely. we'll tackle that right now. i wish we could spend the whole hour on this report. there is so much in here. important work. thank you for coming on. >> it is my pleasure. melissa: taxpayers appreciate it. >> anytime. melissa: turning now to the post office, it has been big news for the past week. as we just mentioned the gao says it is quote, facing a deteriorating financial situation in which it does not have sufficient revenues to cover its expenses and financial obligations. we know that. but the postmaster has a plan. joining me now is the man
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himself, patrick donahoe, postmaster general with the united states. great to have you back on the show. >> hi, melissa. melissa: we appreciate your time. i want to get your reaction right away what you just heard there? >> we agree with what the gao said. we work very closely with them. it is a business model issue. they're exactly right. we've lost a substantial amount of first class mail. even though the package business is growing very well it is not enough to make the difference up. we had to do a lot of cost reductions. one is to eliminate saturday as a day of mail delivery. but we'll still deliver package. >> when i see you do interviews, you see you on the air you strike me someone with a plan and desperate to make changes and feels like you're held back from doing what you think you need to do in order to make this business viable. we asked you for specific things you want to get done and there are really big changes here. one you want to require the postal service to sponsor its own health care plan. what does that mean exactly? and how much money do you think you could save? >> well right now the postal
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service is part of the federal plan. it is a good plan, if we took our own plan over, went with big provider, blue cross, united health care, somebody like that, take one million people and compete have the best plan in terms of size and scope of the united states. it would do a couple things t would reduce our costs right away we think $1.5 billion. plus, it would allow us to reduce the retiree health benefit numbers going forward. we've got $50 billion in retirement savings for our retirees already. we're still on the hook for another 50. we think we could really reduce it with our own plans. melissa: i love the idea of you going outbidding this competitively. have you seen a lot of resistance? why are they fighting back? >> it is knot so much fighting back it is just change. people worry about that. we've gone on record saying that the 50 billion we already have set aside, we would be fine putting that in a special treasury account so that our employees do have coverage
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going on the future. as our volumes go down, revenues go down they would be safe. melissa: how do you want to reform the business model? obviously you want to cut it back to five-day mail service. the biggest problem is snail mail going out to places where it is just not cost effective to deliver mail. at the same time people say that is your basic mission. wherr could you make big changes and save big money? >> we already have been making big changes. as a matter of fact in the last, within the last four years we reduced headcount by almost 200,000 people. our people do a great job. they have been very productive as we shrunk down. we shrunk facilities. we have shrunk hours of post offices. we've changed delivery routes. at the same time we're focusing on growing the business in the package business. we had double-digit growth last couple years in package business. so we think as we lose the first class volume we'll be able to grow the package business. melissa: the biggest problem you have, always comes down to that, are the benefits for retired workers. one thing you want to do to tackle it for the future is to switch over to defined
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contribution plan as opposed to defined benefit. is that enough? or do you have to cut benefits to workers who are further along and maybe already retired? >> we're in really good shape on our retirement plans for current workers. we've got two plans. as a matter of fact one is overfunded and we're asking for some money back from that. one is fully funded. so our current employees are in great shape. what we're proposing is, starting maybe next year, the year after, whatever we can work through on this, is to work with the federal government to come up with a defined contribution plan. we put the money in the same accounts for people that have savings accounts now, thrift savings accounts but the key there is this. number one, it would become portable. so if a person starts in the postal service of 25 years, now and they work 20 years, who knows what the place is going to look like in 20 years. melissa: right. >> maybe some big changes. they could take the retirement with them if they want to take a different job. melissa: no. go ahead. >> go ahead. the other thing is save us
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money. melissa: we're running out of time. i've got to ask you, you've gone from a business in 2006 making a billion dollars a year to one that loses 16 billion. the problem is so huge and so out of control. the changes you're talking about, do you really think that you could get back in the black and be profitable again. >> sure. sure we can. break it down real quick. the health care is worth 7 billion a year. it eliminates prefunding requirement. saves us a billion and a half in health care costs. moving from 6 to five day on letter delivery is worth $2 billion a year. many of the other changes plus negotiations we've had with our unions to shrink some of the labor costs we could be in the black. pay our debt down within three years. melissa: you're a man with a plan. i mean you take a lot of abuse from people out there making fun of the postal service and how much money you're losing. best of luck to you. we appreciate your time here. >> thank you. melissa: turn to today's market moment. warren buffett's berkshire hathaway making a splash on wall street. berkshire and private equity
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firm 3g capital acquire heinz more more than $23 billion. warren buffett spoke to our own liz claman about the deal and the 72.5 share purchase price a short time ago. take a listen. >> how did you pick the price of 72.50 with the 3g guys? >> they did most of the work what to pay. i went along with it and, i was reluctant but i signed up. melissa: there you go. meanwhile the european union's economy contracted the most in four years. the unly sharp drop led to a sharp drop on wall street. blue ships dropped nine points. nasdaq and s&p 500 eked out slight gains with the s&p hitting a fresh five-year high. coming up on "money", the government love affair with solar and wind energy has never been stronger but will it turn the lights out on the nuclear energy
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industry? ceo of westinghouse electric joins us exclusively. that is coming up next. plus love is filling the air today. making guys they would normally never buy to win women's hearts. if you want to win me over it will take more than doug shaped flowers. sorry about that. look at this. nothing says love like a rose dipped in gold. it is all music to business's ears. it doesn't smell. more "money" straight ahead. but we can still help you see your big picture. with the fidelity guided portfolio summary, you choose which accounts to track and use fidelity's analytics topot trends, gain insights, and figure out what you want to do next. all in one place. i'm meredith stoddard and i helped create
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♪ . melissa: now on to nuclear energy and the president's push for green energy and to get off traditional sources. no one said nuke in a long time, right? when was the last time you heard that? it is all about the oil and gas boom. so how is this affecting nuclear's bottom line and what is in store for the future? here to talk about that in a fox business exclusive, westinghouse electric ceo and president daniel roderick. welcome to the show. you hear so much on one side, green energy, solar and wind,
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solar and wind. on other side you hear about natural gas fracking movement how cheap natural gas is. do you feel left out? >> melissa, first of all these energy sources will be vital for the united states's energy future. nuclear has incredibly important role to play in that. across the world you will see countries who have explored into a renewables are coming back to nuclear little by little. overall, having the stable, safe, reliable base load source will be important. it has to be there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. melissa: are you still seeing the investment though? you're in the business of, you know, supplying reactors and utilities. are you still seeing the same amount of demand? >> we're building eight units around the world right now. that is eight more than we were ten years ago. so the interest in nuclear is still very strong. we have created over 200,000 jobs in the united states right now in the nuclear industry. and it is still growing. melissa: a lot of people focus on the nuclear waste
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issue. when you talk about carbon emissions obviously nuclear stacks up in a great way and is a clean energy but it is all about what happens when you're done with the waste. in france they recycle it. any chance we'll do that here anytime soon? >> i think there is some really exciting technology coming in the next ten to 15 years of being able to reuse that fuel over and over again, which will actually make nuclear a real renewable looking at it going forward. melissa: what is the climate like in washington right now for nuclear? >> we have had tremendously positive support for nuclear. melissa: in washington, seriously? doesn't feel like that. did you hear the state of the union? >> i did. both parties have been supporting nuclear. you don't have a big debate. give you couple examples in the czech republic we have tremendous support from the u.s. government. we had secretary clinton come over and actually support us in our bid work there. the ambassador icen in country has been tremendously support citi.
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-- supportive in washington because we create a lot of jobs in the united states. melissa: flip side, natural gas is really cheap. there is so much fracking going on and the supply is so high that it seems like a long term structural change in the price of natural gas. how do you battle that? >> i lived through the gas boom and bubble in my career. keep in mind natural gas is a commodity that will go up and down with price as demand does. this $3 gas, to, two weeks ago in new york was $33. this ability to maintain this low price of gas is something that the market has not really looked at. and over the years, if you watch the gas price, its volatility is its weakness. trying to refer to gasoline in 1970 at 20 cents a gallon. today it is $4. demand drives the price and it is a global market. so china is competing for the same gas. europe is competing for that gas. why would you sell it for $3 in the united states if you
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could sell it for 15 in europe? melissa: how does the cost of nuclear stack up for the consumer versus everything else? if you go to the department of energy website wind only costs 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. they leave out a lot of factors. coal is ten cents. nuclear is ten cents. is wind cheaper to the consumer?. >> we found no place in the world where wind is cheaper. there are several factors. wind has to be subsidized. if you look globally, if the government is not subsidizing wind significantly you can't afford to build them the second part of wind is doesn't run all the time. melissa: right. >> you need electricity 24 hours a day. when you're asleep you need electricity to keep the refrigerator going. melissa: right. >> the concept of purely reliable power 24 hours a day is really where the nuclear advantage comes in. melissa: when working and subsidized it is eight cents but that is almost never. dan, thanks for coming on the show. good stuff. time for today's fuel gain report. governor andrew cuomo missed
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a deadline that would real lou fracking in new york state. environmental concerns halted fracking in new york in 2008. drillers were waiting on a report from como about the environmental impact. the failure to deliver it may delay a decision until next year. shale oil boom will add $2.7 trillion to the global economy by 2013. did you hear that? the production surge could cut oil prices by up to $50 a barrel. that is according to a new study by pricewaterhousecoopers. natural gas futures nose dived. u.s. natural gas stockpiles fell less than forecast last week. that raised concerns that natural gas demand isn't keeping up with the abundant supplies. we were just talking about that. next on "money", north carolina legislators approve massive cuts to jobless benefits. it will save the state mountains of cash but are they draconian measures? one of the state senators voting in favor of the cut
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joins us next. plus, you know i'm totally smitten over my dog shaped flowers. my golden rose. i just love it. nothing could possibly make me happier this valentine's day than, oh, man, i was wrong. look at that. guys will drop dough on things on valentine's day they would normally never buy. we'll show you how businesses are making a killing. they're staying on the floor. these roses are that tall. from you? i didn't know you cared. do you ever have too much money or too many six-foot roses? you're the sweetest. i love them. where is the golden one? ♪ .
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north carolina taking an axe to its unemployment benefits, slashing maximum weekly jobless benefits more than a third from $535, to 350 for new claims starting july 1st. that is a huge chunk of change. and bound to put a lot of people in pain. republican north carolina state senator andrew brook is behind the drastic cuts and he joins me now. you are a brave man to come out and do this and basically my understanding is that your state borrowed $2.5 billion from the feds in order to do this program and you say now that you guys can't afford to borrow more. is that the crux of it? >> that is part of it. our businesses can't afford to hire more people because we have additional tax increases on our businesses. it will be tougher for them to hire more people under the federal repayment plan that will have them paying in 2016 over $700 million. our plan will take them to 79 million. melissa: from just an economic point of view, i mean setting aside, and it
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is so hard to do this, setting aside the pain to people that are involved, you are looking down the barrel of an economic choice where you have to say either i have to raise taxes on businesses, to go ahead and pay for this, which would stop them from hiring more people or possibly cause them to fire more people, or, you know, i have to cut benefits to people, money that they would go out and spend. maybe that would stimulate the economy. from an economic point of view and not a human point of view, how do you make that choice as to what will benefit your state more? >> one think about it, we can't get jobs if businesses can't hire people. looking what we have overall with our system, the more and more people out of work we can not afford these tax increases or what we have for the debt repayment by the federal government. just like a bad debt, better to pay off as much as soon as possible, than you would later on. so, what we have right now,
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we can't afford to print money here in north carolina with what they do up in washington. melissa: right. >> so we had to take, we had to take the bull by the horns and do this. we brought all the stakeholders into this plan. and there is no way we can't get around it without raising taxes on businesses. they know if we do it right now, that in the long run it will be much, much better because the federal repayment plan would take it all the way out to 2019, instead of 2016 under our plan. melissa: emotionally, and politically it is very hard to cut benefits to people who are not working and, have to go out and buy food and pay the rent. what is pushback against you you've been like? >> it has been tough. in my district over the last week and a half we have announced layoffs of over 1100 people. the thing in north carolina, our workers want to work. they don't want unemployment checks to come in. they want a job. they want a paycheck. that's what we're trying it do.
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if we can't put businesses in the light where they can hire people it will be very, very difficult to get people back to work. melissa: we were looking at your unemployment rate, 9.2%. it is well above the national average. you think what you're doing, this tough decision helps that number go down? >> yes, i think so because we're making the correct choices now since the last election, that the republicans in north carolina control state government for the first time since reconstruction. and the choices that we're making in state government and policy, and in tax reform will increase jobs, increase employment in the state, because the failed to policies of previous administrations have not worked. melissa: wow! you know you are between a rock and a hard place. it will be interesting to see how this plays out. thank you so much for coming on the show. we really appreciate your time. we will check back in with you to see how this works out. >> thank you, melissa. melissa: he can't print money like they can in washington. he said it. that's true. next on "money" makes way for the world's biggest
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airline. be sure to brace yourself for turbulence on the next trip. the ceo of travel north america joins us cheeks sufficiently what to really expect. can a bouquet of 6 foot tall roses win their way to my heart. the men on "money" are sparing no expense and i appreciate it. roses are prickly. i feel like something cuddly. wow, now we are talking. how pieing things that you might never otherwise buy, right, has businesses cashing in this valentine's day. i love it. "piles of money" and biggest teddy bear you have ever seen coming up. [laughter]
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♪ . melissa: a lot of the gifts, right? megamerger of american airlines and us airways on track to become the world's largest airline with a market value of a whopping 11 ball billion. company executives say they will save a billion dollars a year by 2015. they say this is good news for everyone. listen to what ceo doug harper tells neil cavuto in an interview airing tonight at 8:00 p.m.. >> this merger is great for consumers. 900 routes served, 12 which have overlap. this is merger where we put
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together two airlines and fly to more places for more people. melissa: so joining us in a fox business exclusive, talk about the pros and cons, is shirley tafoya, president of travel zoo north america. what do you think about this? how does it shake out? first of all, react to what you heard. how does it shake out for businesses? what are the pros? >> the pros is, just overall the industry was just bound for a correction. it really needed to get healthier and airlines needed to get healthier. so overall for the businesses it is great. they will now have the opportunity to create a much stronger airline and with that comes more investment in the product, which is always good for the consumers. melissa: and also what i'm hearing you say, if they're healthier and stronger, that means more leverage, higher prices, better margins. that is great for shareholders. that is tough for the consumer, right? >> well, you know, i think this one is a little bit
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different and i think what, what, doug parker just said, you know, the synergies between these two airlines is very different than some of the mergers we've seen in the past in that there is only 12 overlapping routes. so the, so out of 900, out of 900 you've got 12 overlapping. you're just, you're going to create much more service and opportunity for, for travel to get to where you want to go. melissa: that is great point. explain to the viewers what that means. if there is very little overlapping, it means for example, if you're a flyer and your flight gets canceled, if you have a bigger map overall, there is a better chance that you're going to find another way to get where you're going. and it also means that less things will be eliminated as a result because if they they only eliminate maybe those 12, maybe even fewer? >> exactly. exactly. maybe small communities will
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see a little built of a pullback as a result of this merger. but for the most part you're going to have more service. and the ability to, as you said, take additional flights, if you miss your flight. i think also from a consumer standpoint, the amount of low-cost carriers in the market and, their ability to expand is also keeping these major airlines in check. so those two items i think will help keep fares stablized in the market. melissa: i guess but consumers always feel like if there's less competition you as the buyer just have less leverage. you know you have fewer choices out there because there are fewer airlines all the way around so they are going to treat you worse. is that the reality or is that our perception? >> you know i think, if you think of airline service today there's really not a lot of service that goes into it. it really has become very bare bones and i think what airlines have created is that you can pay for the
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services that you want. which, which gives you a lull it about more choice as a consumer. so, you know, in historical, when you look in the past years, the major mergers that have happened between 2004 and 2011, the prices of air fare have not risen that much. it is around 1% year-over-year. so again, the low-cost carriers do keep this in check. melissa: yeah. >> i think for the consumers having a stronger airline means that they will invest in other things rather than trying to continuously cut things to increase profit. >> low-cost carriers, are still out there, strikes me as one business gone, this airline gets bigger two airlines together, the individual guy is even more nimble. he has even more ability to cut in against these guys because he is a little airline. is that the case? >> yes, exactly. they want to be competitive. they're expanding. you look at airlines like
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jetblue and virgin america who came in with a drastically different product, especially virgin america. they have been able to expand into major cities and create choice for consumers. melissa: okay. >> so in my eyes that's, that's what these types of mergers bring. which is great. melissa: thank you very much. catch neil cavuto tonight at 8:00 p.m. with the ceos of american airlines and us air. you doesn't want to miss this. i'm being courted like a queen this valentine's day, have you noticed? flowers, six foot roses and giant teddy bear. could possibly top this to win over my heart. wow! i think i found a winner. how the business of valentine's day reached new financial heights. is that a hoodie footy? >> hoodie footy. it says foxy. at the end of the day it is all about money and presents and wow! for me? thank you!.
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♪ .
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♪ .
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melissa: today is the big day, the super bowl for expensive julie. it is black friday for dark chocolate and christmas day for candy makers. it is valentine's day. it has come a long way from where it started. it was a day once marked by the beheadings, stonings and ritualized beatings. it has become a $18 billion event. on a special day of love and romance, we at "money" figure what is more romantic than crunch the numbers. here to break down the heartfelt financials is our own dennis kneale. what do you get me? >> i will get you the hoodie footy. 18.6 billion. is up a billion from last year. national retail federation, 6% growth. that is twice the growth we got at christmas which shows you how much we love each other. number one category? $4 billion on jewelry. melissa: nice. >> $2 billion on flowers. for guys, flowers are a big lavish gift, they die a couple days. guys jewelry they want
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credit for long-lasting jewelry. melissa: that makes sense. >> yes, exactly. $1.2 billion on cards. if you don't get the card you're in deep trouble. here is what bothers me about the whole thing. i thought women wanted equality in their lives, why is valentine's day a inequitable holiday? men spend twice as much than women on val dines tunes -- valentines holiday gifts. two third of flower givers are men. one-third are women but the women are giving --. melissa: give me flowers. >> you bet i take it. i'll take that. melissa: i didn't think guys wanted flowers. >> i want women to give anything. you guys don't give anything. did you get your husband a valentine's day gift this year. melissa: i did. got him death star lego. "star wars." that is true. he loved it. he was so excited. >> that is so sweet and geeky. melissa: he is not that nerdy. well maybe he is i guess. he did spend a lot more than i did.
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death star was really expensive, it was like 300 bucks. >> you get what you pay for. women always want men to pay more. melissa: what do you think of theefrs? >> first of all, with the teddy bear, this is one of, it would not exist if there weren't valentine's day. i know that size counts but that is just ridiculous. that south of the question. don't like it. melissa: he is 100 bucks. >> in a new york apartment can you imagine fit the thing? it is there forever gathering dust. how disgusting. as for the roses, cardinal rule for gentlemen, never give roses to date taller than you are. those roses are taller than some men giving them. bad idea. melissa: what is that cardinal rule? >> you don't want to be shown up by flowers. melissa: they're six foot roses. if they're standing next to you and you're shorter, i don't know, okay, what do you think of my gold rose? i thought this was pretty fabulous. >> what do you do with it after valentine's day? where are you going to put that? on your desk at work? melissa: i don't know. >> gold-plated but kind of, 80 bucks, should be 800 if it is gold-plated.
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melissa: you made the case for jewelry in everything you're saying. we're talking about, these gifts are lovely and certainly don't want to insult anyone that happens to be a sponsor on our show. i would never do that. what i'm saying there is lot of things here on the set without valentines day possibly would not exist. >> wouldn't be there at all. as for flowers though, remember, one woman told me years ago, some men give flowers and some men give roses. always give roses at valentine's day. melissa: what do you think of the hoodie footy we have going on? this blows me away. >> gave a gift at christmas. for okay on some cute young, female person. i don't think it is so good --. melissa: don't like it on patch? it has a little -- >> down right scary. if you're walking streets of new york he would be arrested. melissa: really? the gift is supposed to be frivolous. love the person. you're willing to throw away. >> lavish and irresponsible. melissa: you're a good sport, dennis. thanks for coming out here.
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here is our "money" question of the day. how much did you spend this valentine's day. your answers range from zero to 150. i don't know. you might be a -- you can like us on facebook.co facebook.com/melissafrancisfox. or follow me on twitter at melissa a francis. coming up on "money", the asteroid about to barely miss earth is not a hung of space rock. this thing is worth really three times the world's richest man. only had a tractor beam to bring it here and wait until you hear about this. you can never have too much "money". ♪ . it's a new day.
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we all work remotely so this is a big deal, our first full team gathering! i wanted to call on a few people. ashley, ashley marshall... here. since we're often all on the move, ashy suggested we use fedex office to hold packages for us. great job. [ applause ] thank you. and on a protocol note, i'd like to talk to tim hill about his tendency to use all caps emails. [ shouting ] oh i'm sorry guys. ah setimes the caps lock gets stuck on my keyboard. hey do you wanna get a drink later? [ male announcer ] hold packages at any fedex office location. i have obligations. cute tobligations, but obligations.g. i need to rethink the core omy portfolio. what i really need is sleep. troducing the ishares core, builng blocks for the heart of your portfolio. find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. risk includes possible loss of principal.
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♪ seminole melissa: it is "spare change" time. mercedes colwin and adam shapiro. mayor bloomberg is at it again. now he wants to ban styrofoam. have you heard about this? he said it in the state of city speech. the new plan will hit small businesses hard. hello, since a styrofoam replacement can cost two to five times as much as the original container do you think this will actually happen? >> in new york city, i think it will happen. they have done it in other places the problem, we could
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have a discussion one day whether it is worth it or not, someone very wealthy or upper middle class can afford to do something like this. people who, this will hit a lot of people. if stores have to raise the price where they will put your food, where do you think they will do? will pass it along. >> i'm so critical of nanny bloomberg. this time i'm not. 20,000 tons of styrofoam a year not biodegradable t will obviously cause health hazards in the future. >> there are more health hazards from the people who spit on subway platform than styrofoam. if we could do deal with that. pressler be. now is going to take away salt, styrofoam. i mean, you know. everyone has to be closed. >> the transfer at. melissa: now on to our "money"* watch, the asteroid that is expected to fire friday,
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expected to fly by is the key. i am suspicious. it is worth $155 billion. may be harboring $65 billion worth of recoverable water. $130 billion in metal. should we try and harness this thing? a big tractor agreement to split end? >> into my backyard. melissa: a little big. >> my take up my entire neighborhood. >> i think this is ridiculous. the age-old question of what your apartment is worth. is not worth anything until someone is willing to give you a dollar for it. this thing is not worth a penny. melissa: of the asteroid. i am so disappointed there is no danger of it coming from us. >> 21066 to just have to stick around. on to valentine's stories. very clever campaign. if the u.n. gets pregnant today there will give a free crab. too bad this tree at the math.
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what a bad campaign. the calculation of this. >> someone it is not want to have to give away. >> we have to work on that crab. let's go. how romantic is that. >> it's kind of like the super bowl giveaway. that story. they give away free furniture. often is that going to happen? melissa: how about this, perfect for valentine's day. after a divorce. a lawyer in michigan, but this novel idea. so far 500 people have applied for the freebie. they get every divorce. so romantic. >> oh, my goodness. absolutely. melissa: leave it up to a lawyer. >> i'm one of them, as it is okay, but i'm one of them. a smart idea. i don't have one. two marriages. >> never thought about it. >> you have two teenagers. melissa: they're not connected
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to chief -- i mean, it's free. it of making money off of it. >> the prenup, some other contract work. is there 500 people that have signed up. people love will be repeat customers. melissa: repeat divorce customers. >> beckham from a family of lawyers, and one of them as my mother, divorce lawyer, acrimony is alive and well. but me through college. melissa: there you go. well, let's talk about valentine's day purchases. no, wait. we will do something else. there are some his celebrated valentine's day a day early. evidently february 13th is misters day. it is an unofficial holiday. so if your partner is having an affair, the 13th is the perfect time to catch and. >> wire you looking at me? [laughter] update an update. melissa: you have nothing to say about this? >> about

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